I recently completed a three-month artist residency in the lovely Chicago neighborhood of Pullman. After considering a number of ideas of what I planned to do during my stay, I landed on contemplating the idea of leisure in area known for labor. This was not …
Onion Dip for Breakfast turns two and the journey just gets better every day. We’ve explored the nooks and crannies of life, clinked our glasses, tasted everything, and taken off for parts unknown. Happy anniversary, ODB!
I’ve been planning to revisit a particular show for months! The little and big things of life delayed my fuzzy plans. Poking my head back into the Art Institute’s galleries recently, I was struck by the opening text of this lovely show:
“It took millions of years for the creation of the earth and for nature to form beautiful green hills and valleys, bubbling brooks and magnificent tall trees, but even though we have abused it all of late, it has been well worth waiting for.
History tells us it took hundreds of years for the continent of Africa to regain its stolen freedom and independence and [despite] the fact that there are three areas still struggling for liberation, it was well worth waiting for.”
-Kwame Brathwaite
June closed with an explosion of fruit and flowers in the Black Garden. July promises even more.
We were celebrating my parents’ marriage the last time we saw “Sweet Life” with a garden cake, sparkling flutes, joy, and a flashback to their wedding day. We’ve returned to the theme in all of its goodness. I find that as much as I’m present …
We’ve had the pleasure of spending time in a number of galleries lately and we’re happier for it. Long ago we dismissed the notion that when we enter a museum, we must see everything. Who wants to run by works of art as if we’ve entered an obstacle course?
Here are two shows featuring artists and their contemporary portraits. One in Chicago and the other in New York. I’d long to see attention for Juan de Pareja since I first learned of his existence back in the 80s. A quick trip for love to NYC made the show at the Met the icing on the cake. This exquisite show draws from the well of research by the extraordinary Arturo Schomburg in the 1920s. More of his story in a future post.
Enslaved by Velázquez and a painter himself, Juan de Pareja was rumored to be responsible for some of the more well-known works attributed to the famous artist. Newer research seems to bear that out. Time will tell.
The Met’s show highlights the period and contextualizes what life might have been like for this enslaved artist who traveled everywhere Velázquez went including to the Vatican. One heart-wrenching gallery includes both the central portrait of Juan de Pareja with Velázquez‘s signed document “freeing” him and his progeny (on the condition that he remained enslaved four additional years) inside a fading book positioned squarely in front of his portrait. Hauntingly sad doesn’t begin to describe how I felt standing there.
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And then we return to Chicago for Patric McCoy’s show of 80s Black gay life downtown through photographs thoughtfully curated by Juarez Hawkins at Wrightwood 659.
Our family way of life is usually quite spontaneous. Our plans will have edges that keep us together but everything in between stays loose. Who knows what you’ll see, smell, hear or taste if everything isn’t charted out?
Those who accompany us either love it or dislike it. Fortunately, our favorite travel partners have taken to it, too.
After a quick trip from the airport recently, the three of us pivoted from going for delicious Filipino food again at Kasama because we wouldn’t make it before they closed to Mexican delicacies that are bountiful in the vicinity. We feasted heartily at a delightful restaurant tucked inside a tiny grocery store. When we asked what beverage options were available with lunch, the nice woman gestured toward an entire aisle of cold drinks!
We marveled at the unusual white beans on my mom’s plate and were pleased to see them raw in bags later in the store. We enjoyed our dessert, Nutella cookies and honeybuns, in the car as we made our way home.
Here’s to seeing where the road takes us!
Waterways. My residency has been going swimmingly (yes, pun intended) and affords me space to reflect, learn, rest, and make. Like waterways, there’s a confluence in my activity and lack thereof. There’s an emphasis on being still sometimes, flowing as I feel the urge, and …
